1. Technical Field
The present application relates to a capping machine in a beverage bottling plant configured to cap beverage bottles with beverage bottle crown caps or beverage bottle screw caps and a capping machine configured to cap containers with container caps.
2. Background Information
Background information is for informational purposes only and does not necessarily admit that subsequently mentioned information and publications are prior art.
Devices for the feeding of cap-type closures, including cap-type closures that are realized in the form of screw caps, to capping machines or to the cap transport mechanisms of such capping machines for the capping of bottles or similar containers are known in a wide variety of realizations. Basically, devices of this type comprise a feed or conveyor channel, the cross section of which is adapted to the shape of the closures, i.e. it can be realized in a rectangular shape, for example, so that the closures are oriented in the conveyor channel with their closure axis perpendicular or substantially perpendicular to the direction of conveyance and can thereby be in one of two orientations, and for example one orientation which is correct for the processing of the closures in which the cap-type closures are oriented with their open side facing a first side of the conveyor channel, and an incorrect orientation which is not usable for the further processing, in which the cap-type closures are oriented with their open side facing a second side of the conveyor channel which is opposite the first side.
The closures reach the conveyor channel after traveling through a sorting unit. In this sorting unit, the closures are oriented so that almost all of the closures that are transferred to the conveyor channel are already in the correct orientation. Nevertheless, it is inevitable that a very small number of closures will get into the conveyor channel in the incorrect orientation.
To prevent, restrict, and/or minimize errors in the closing or capping of the containers, on some devices a blocking device is provided on the respective conveyor channel, in the form of a star wheel, for example, which allows correctly oriented closures to pass but blocks the conveyor channel for incorrectly oriented closures, although it also blocks the conveyor channel for all or substantially all or most of the subsequent closures, which inevitably results in a production shutdown. The incorrectly oriented closures must or should then be removed manually from the conveyor channel. This procedure requires or desires manual activity and is relatively time consuming, which is undesirable in industrial operations.